The Minor Leagues : The Pestilence Is Coming
DWL043 . Released June 27, 2006 . Add to Cart : $10 . iTunes Music Store . eMusicDescription
Quite unlike any other indie pop album you'll likely hear this year, 'The Pestilence Is Coming' is the result of three years of writing and rewriting and an additional year of recording, rerecording, mixing, rerecording, remixing, mastering, etc.

The result is a 51-minute assault of home-recorded melody, intricate arrangements boasting over 40 contributing musicians and a conceptual storyline of love, loss and French Canadians.Reviews
A mind-blowing "concept" album featuring 15 tracks of the group's incredibly refined, impossibly catchy Indie Pop. Over 40 (!) guests lent a hand in the recording, providing everything from horns, violin and bagpipes to choral/gang background vocals and handclaps. The results are astounding.. The album is a jubilant, dizzying collection, highlighted by colorful, kaleidoscopic melodies that just seem to pour out of Walpole effortlessly. Exquisitely arranged and sublimely orchestral, Walpole's songs are padded with layers of unique ornamental extras (xylophone, Peruvian pipes, glockenspiel, accordion, etc.), but none of it is extraneous. The lyrical thread is equally exhilarating. Walpole is a sharp, imaginative writer (reading the lyric sheet is almost as fun as listening to the songs), telling character stories and touching on everything from politics and class to isolation and love. And the hooks are some of the best you'll find on any Pop/Rock album; fans of undeniable melody-masters like Brian Wilson, The Kinks, Beulah, The Apples in Stereo and (old) Blur -- you have a new favorite band.

The amazing capabilities of the digital home studio are on brilliant display in the new release from the Minor Leagues.. A couple years in the making, the ambitious concept effort, running for 51 minutes, doesn't waste a second, playing as a rock opera with a lush orchestral pop sound. Walpole sounds a little like the Kinks' Ray Davies and takes the Phil Spector wall-of-sound approach with richly textured pop songs. It is an exhilarating listen with tune after tune of delicious sonic hooks and melodies and clever, imaginative writing - as good as any indie release you'll hear.

A breezy yet satisfyingly chewy morsel of pop goodness, from its nostalgic horn charts to its grand swinging chorus and its intermittently goofy background vocals. Like any number of great old Kinks songs, this one has three solid, well-put-together parts.. And I will say that Walpole does manage to sound eerily like a cross between Davies and Mick Jones - especially eerie for a guy from Cincinnati.

On the inside cover of The Pestilence Is Coming there's photos of 42 faces: the four members of the band, three featured musicians on the album, and 35 others who sang or played on it. I keep looking at them for some reason - they look like nice, friendly people, not exactly your average grizzly rock star-types. Together they've created a heck of a pop-rock album, though, one that's packed full of melody and light and an inspiring, lift-up sort of feeling. There's a community feeling to the music, one reminiscent in sound of Head of Femur and perhaps the Elephant 6 bands, Beulah especially. The music's big and sweeping, and the instrumentation is varied - lots of horns and percussion and joyous singing-together, making the Minor Leagues resemble a mini-orchestra at times. That communal feeling's appropriate too for an album that seems at times like a conceptual work about community, about social problems and how their handled (or not), about the end of the apocalypse and how we'll handle it. It starts with the hoopla of a store's grand opening, happening in the midst of crime and poverty as politicians offer only ineffectual crosstalk. And it ends with the end of the world, love, and unanswered questions: "No I just don't know the truth."

With a veritable army of contributing musicians (42!) and a hilarious/timely concept, this epic record is exactly what a concept album should be. Similar in scope and melodic sensibility to the Decemberists, with a wry and sardonic sense of humor evocative of Ween, The Minor Leagues have put together a powerhouse album - a contemporary creative masterpiece of cynicism and musicality. 5 stars.

The scale of this album is amazing. It's full of grandeur -
it tells a story of self-discovery and is layered with about 40 musicians. It's like some lost great American novel, but this one is set with a sonic quality of a Beulah pop album. Set it Cincinnati, where people have 'run away from the riots, the city, the fear.' And our narrator begins by thinking he has no control over his destiny, stuck in a city where 'the superficial scene's such a drag.' He needs out. And he begins to dream of more Ð of a Canadian dreamland. Through his dreams, he takes a new look at the place he lives and what he loves. He finds some solace in staying to himself. He fleshes out that love theme. And he realizes he has control of his destiny. (#3 - Best Albums of 2006)